The rhizosphere microbiome is essential for plant growth and health, and numerous studies have attempted to link microbiome functionality to species and trait composition. However, to date little is known about the actual ecological processes shaping community composition, complicating attempts to steer microbiome functionality. Here, we assess the development of microbial life history and community‐level species interaction patterns that emerge during plant development. We use microbial phenotyping to experimentally test the development of niche complementarity and life history traits linked to microbiome performance. We show that the rhizosphere microbiome assembles from pioneer assemblages of species with random resource overlap into high‐density, functionally complementary climax communities at later stages. During plant growth, fast‐growing species were further replaced by antagonistic and stress‐tolerant ones. Using synthetic consortia isolated from different plant growth stages, we demonstrate that the high functional diversity of ‘climax’ microbiomes leads to a better resistance to bacterial pathogen invasion. By demonstrating that different life‐history strategies prevail at different plant growth stages and that community‐level processes may supersede the importance of single species, we provide a new toolbox to understand microbiome assembly and steer its functionality at a community level.

中文翻译：

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根际微生物组功能多样性和病原体入侵抵抗力在植物发育过程中建立。

根际微生物组对植物的生长和健康至关重要，许多研究已尝试将微生物组的功能与物种和性状组成联系起来。然而，迄今为止，关于影响社区组成的实际生态过程知之甚少，这使操纵微生物组功能的尝试变得复杂。在这里，我们评估了微生物生命史的发展以及在植物发育过程中出现的社区级物种相互作用模式。我们使用微生物表型来实验测试与微生物组性能相关的生态位互补性和生活史特征的发展。我们显示，根际微生物组从具有随机资源重叠的物种的先驱组合组装到后期的高密度，功能互补的高潮群落。在植物生长期间 快速生长的物种进一步被拮抗和耐压的物种取代。使用从不同植物生长阶段分离出的合成财团，我们证明了“高潮”微生物群的高功能多样性导致对细菌病原体入侵的更好抵抗力。通过证明不同的生命史策略在不同的植物生长阶段占主导地位，以及社区一级的过程可能取代单个物种的重要性，我们提供了一个新的工具箱，以了解微生物组装配并在社区一级指导其功能。